It’s always so much fun to pick out gifts for kids! As a parent, however, I now have a keen sense of the gifts for kids that are nightmares for parents. Excluding the obviously dangerous and choke-worthy (which goes without saying), here’s my list of gifts to avoid at all costs:
1. Anything with teeny-tiny parts: Teeny-tiny parts pose not only a choking hazard for the very small, but a foot hazard for everyone else in the home. (If you’ve ever stepped barefooted onto a Lego at three in the morning, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about). Additionally, teeny-tiny parts invariably go hand-in-hand with painstaking, profanity-inducing levels of Assembly Required. Not recommended.
2. Anything that lacks an on/off switch: My infant son was given a “my first drum” that is a) unable to be turned off and b) hair-trigger sensitive. Last night, his exhausted cries before bedtime were enough to set it off, as well as the cat walking by in a different part of the room. “My first drum” may well be taking an inaugural trip to Goodwill before Nicholas ever gets a chance to bat at it.
3. Anything so loud that you wouldn’t want it in your own house: Grandparents are particularly guilty of this one, I’ve found. My father recently sent my daughter a pair of sandals that squeak with every step, along with an apology to my husband and me. And my husband’s mother gave Lorelei a sing-along CD where the adult narrator encourages the kids to “shout as loud as you can!” and “don’t hold back — let’s be loud!” I’m telling you, preschoolers need this sort of encouragement less than anyone else in the world.
4. Anything that clearly makes no sense, size-wise: Especially if you don’t have kids of your own, parents certainly don’t expect you to be up on the minutiae of their children’s clothing sizes. However, if you give a 6-month-old a 6-month-old sized sundress in the middle of December, it’s a near certainty that she’ll never be able to wear it. When in doubt, go bigger rather than smaller (some “newborn” sized outfits are too small for most babies to wear even right out of the gate).
5. Anything overtly racist: Now, you wouldn’t think this one would come up very often, but Lorelei recently received a discount DVD filled with grainy old cartoons from the early days of cartoons. We decided to give it a chance — despite the fact that many of the characters were smoking — right up until the moment when one of the characters suddenly turned into a mammy (at which point we removed it from the DVD player, threw it in the trash, and quickly changed activities)
From Parentsociety.com/ Posted by Mags
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